Tightrope

Chapter One

The clock on Tori Vega's cell phone reminded her of the fourteen long minutes she'd been waiting for her meal to arrive, and the even more aggravating twenty-seven that had passed since noon, the time she'd given her still absent guest. While she pondered what could possibly cause the chefs in such an empty restaurant to take fourteen minutes to put together a stupid sandwich, Tori anxiously picked at her cuticles and tried to keep her heart rate from going any higher. Lately, every time her mind wandered to the subject of her career - or what she was going to have to do because of it - a wave of nausea attacked her stomach. Six months ago, when she'd finally received her recording contract, five years after she'd enrolled in Hollywood Arts and decided that singing was what she truly wanted to do with her life, the thought of the whole thing made her heart jump for an entirely different reason. She was definitely still excited – there was no doubt about that. It was just that now, this whole singing career thing was turning out to be a lot more complicated than Tori had ever imagined it would be. It was a wonderful opportunity – thousands and thousands of people dreamt of what she now had, and what she hopefully was going to have in the future. Gratitude wasn't at all lost on her, but the nagging feeling that she was selling herself out wouldn't go away.

The wait time on Tori's sandwich was officially seventeen minutes when she realized she'd been picking at her thumb so long that it was now bleeding. She reached for a napkin to clean it up just as the chair across from her was pulled out with a loud screech, and a very impatient Jade West took a seat in it.

"Yeah?" She made no attempt to apologize for being half an hour late, and the look she was giving her so-called friend wasn't making it any easier for Tori to do what she'd invited Jade to the restaurant for.

"Well, umm...I have a favor to ask you."

"I don't do favors, Tori. Especially for you." Jade replied bluntly, hardly even giving Tori the time to finish her sentence.

"I know that." Tori lowered her voice as her waitress finally brought her meal, "but you owe me."

"Can I get a margarita?" Jade spoke to the waitress in a rather rude tone of voice, completely ignoring Tori's plea. She'd shown up, at least, and that was a good sign. Tori knew that getting Jade to meet with her would be biggest challenge in part one of her scheme.

"Sure. Lime, strawberry, peach, or coconut?" Tori made a mental note to leave the woman a good tip, solely for putting up with Jade so nicely, as she obviously wasn't getting it for bringing out Tori's meal in a timely manner.

"Lime." Jade decided, adding at the last minute without a second thought, "And put it on her tab." Tori sighed in frustration, but gave the waitress a look of approval before the two were alone again.

"And now you owe me even more." A crease appeared between Tori's eyebrows as she told Jade how she felt without saying another word. She then calmly grabbed one half of her sandwich, watching as her guest reached over a second later to rip a large chunk off of the remaining half before she had the chance to protest. "Alright, so before you're indebted to me for more than what your life is worth, can we talk?"

"Fine." Jade muttered through her teeth after swallowing a bite of stolen sandwich. "What do you want?"

"Okay, so...this is really kind of embarrassing, actually" Those words immediately caught Jade's attention, and her attitude toward the meeting flip-flopped. "but I kind of discovered this week that everybody at the record label thinks I'm a lesbian."

"Oh my god." Jade managed to spit out those three words before she burst into laughter. "Why do they think that?" She gave her friend a mischievous smile as she absentmindedly picked up the spoon in front of her. "What have you been doing lately?"